Man Utd Injury Update: Mourinho Confirms Double Injury Boost Ahead Of Leicester

FA Cup winners Manchester United take on Premier League champions Leicester City in the 2016/17 Community Shield at Wembley Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Ahead of the season curtain raiser, Jose Mourinho has been speaking to the media at his pre-match press conference this afternoon and he’s given ManUtd.com a team news and injury update.

The Portuguese coach was pleased to confirm that Chris Smalling and Timothy Fosu-Mensah are back in training and considered fit and and available for selection this weekend.

After returning late to pre-season following his exploits with England at Euro 2016, Smalling was forced to sit out the 5-2 friendly win over Galatasaray last weekend with a recurrence of an old injury and was subsequently left out of Wayne Rooney’s testimonial against Everton on Wednesday night.

Young defender Fosu-Mensah also missed the two games against Galatasaray and Everton with a minor injury concern but Mourinho has revealed that both players are now ‘fine’.

The United boss went on to confirm that Smalling and Fosu-Mensah are back training with the main first team squad and hinted they should feature against Leicester on Sunday in order to build up their match fitness.

Smalling in particular needs minutes ahead of the new Premier League season – although the 26-year-old will be suspended for the opening game against Bournemouth following his dismissal in the FA Cup final back in May.

Mourinho told the clubs website:

“They [Smalling & Fosu-Mensah] are fine now. They have recovered and they are training with the group as normal, so they are fine. Everybody need minutes – that is the reality. We had so little time to play and Smalling is a player who has not even played one minute, but it is a little bit the same for everyone.”

United booked their place in Sunday’s Community Shield with victory over Crystal Palace in last seasons FA Cup final while Leicester will contest their first ever Community Shield following their sensational title win last year.

Despite the fact that Claudio Ranieri’s men head in to the game as the defending champions, all the stats, bets and tips indicate that United are the heavy favourites to win at Wembley this weekend.

Some of the football scores Leicester produced last season were unbelievable as they marched towards an unlikely title win, however, with Mourinho in charge this year everybody is expecting United to be a different team.

They lacked confidence under Louis van Gaal but with a world class manager in charge and new additions like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitaryan on board, I fancy United to be real contenders this season and will kick things off with victory over the Foxes on Sunday.